Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Following in the wake of recent neuroscientific discoveries revealing the importance of dreams for memory consolidation, Google’s AI company DeepMind is pioneering a new technology which allows robots to dream in order to improve their rate of learning. Not surprisingly given the company behind the project, the substance of these AI dreams consists primarily of scenes from Atari Video games. DeepMind’s earliest success involved teaching AI to play ancient videos games like Breakout and Asteroids. But the end game here is for robots to dream about much the same things humans do – challenging real world situations that play important roles in learning and memory formation. ...

One of the primary discoveries scientists made when seeking to understand the role of dreams from a neuroscientific perspective was that the content of dreams is primarily negative or threatening. Try keeping a dream journal for a month and you will likely find your dreams consist inordinately of threatening or awkward situations. It turns out the age old nightmare of turning up to school naked is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to dreams. ...

DeepMind is using dreams in a parallel fashion, accelerating the rate at which an AI learns by focusing on the negative or challenging content of a situation within a game. ... it does seem increasingly likely that AIs could soon dream of socially awkward situations like showing up to school naked.

Okay, I think that Google is trolling us. Next it will be announcing that quantum AI computers are dreaming in parallel universes.

he Oxford Dictionaries named ‘post-truth’ as their 2016 Word of the Year. It must sound alien to scientists. Science’s quest for knowledge about reality presupposes the importance of truth, both as an end in itself and as a means of resolving problems. How could truth become passé?

For philosophers like me, post-truth also goes against the grain. But in the wake of the US presidential election and the seemingly endless campaigns preceding it, author Ralph Keyes’s 2004 declaration that we have arrived in a post-truth era seems distressingly plausible.

Post-truth refers to blatant lies being routine across society, and it means that politicians can lie without condemnation. ...

The lack of public indignation when political figures claim disbelief in response to scientific consensus on climate change is part of this larger pattern.

There was a scientific consensus that Hillary Clinton should be, and would be, the next US President.

The elites got caught lying to us about immigration, trade deals, foreign wars, Russia, Islam, Common Core, urban crime-fighting, and an assortment of other issues.

Apparently, Trump taught some ppl to question what the elites tell us, and this is very disturbing to a lot of professors.

Here is another wake-up call about modern science:

A bug in fMRI software could invalidate 15 years of brain research ...

Functional MRI (fMRI) is 25 years old, yet surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls to conduct 3 million task group analyses. ...

but instead we found that the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of some 40,000 fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results.

Oops. For some reason, both experts and the general public are extremely gullible on subject of scientific claims based on DNA or brain scans.

Friday, November 25, 2016

The highly prestigious British science journal Nature endorsed Hillary Clinton for US President, and attacked Donald Trump at every opportunity. Here is how it announced the election results:

Donald Trump's US election win stuns scientists ...

Although science played only a bit part in this year’s dramatic, hard-fought campaign, many researchers expressed fear and disbelief as Trump defeated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on 8 November.

“Trump will be the first anti-science president we have ever had,” says Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in Washington DC. “The consequences are going to be very, very severe.” ...

Some researchers are already thinking about leaving the United States in the wake of the election. ...

“This is terrifying for science, research, education, and the future of our planet,” tweeted María Escudero Escribano, a postdoc studying electrochemistry and and sustainable energy conversation at Stanford University in California. “I guess it's time for me to go back to Europe.” ...

“It’s going to badly tarnish the image of the United States,” he says. “Roughly half of the population has voted for somebody who by almost any measure is unfit to serve as president.”

The comments were mostly pro-Trump.

Of course no one can explain how Trump is anti-science as a comment remarks:

OK, so Donald Trump is anti-science. How so? Is he against gravity? Is he against medicine? Is he against scientific research? Is he against mathematics or engineering? is he against chemistry? Or may he is against the scientific method? Who is speaking here for all scientists? Did they conduct a poll so that they could say that Trump's election stunned scientists? Or maybe since his election stunned everyone, they are just assuming it stunned scientists as well? That's not really news is it - since it stunned most people! I still don't understand how Donald Trump is anti-science. I've never heard him say such a thing. Did he threaten to take away funding for scientific research? I think he realizes the valuable role science has played in the history of the US and my guess is that he expects real science will continue to propel the US forward. First anti-science President? Hmmmm. I have a sneaking suspicion that what he means is that if Donald Trump doesn't take his side in every single scientific issue, he is anti-science. I'm not worried at all! Up until now, everyone has been afraid of being labelled anti-science and so they have adopted as gospel truth, whatever unsubstantiated claims scientists made. I doubt Trump is afraid of that label which actually may be just what science needs to free itself from the grips of the ruling scientific elite.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Microsoft is putting its considerable financial and engineering muscle into the experimental field of quantum computing as it works to build a machine that could tackle problems beyond the reach of today’s digital computers.

There is a growing optimism in the tech world that quantum computers, superpowerful devices that were once the stuff of science fiction, are possible — and may even be practical. If these machines work, they will have an impact on work in areas such as drug design and artificial intelligence, as well as offer a better understanding of the foundations of modern physics.

Microsoft’s decision to move from pure research to an expensive effort to build a working prototype underscores a global competition among technology companies, including Google and IBM, which are also making significant investments in search of breakthroughs. ...

Microsoft now believes that it is close enough to designing the basic qubit building block that the company is ready to begin engineering a complete computer, said Todd Holmdahl, ...

“Once we get the first qubit figured out, we have a road map that allows us to go to thousands of qubits in a rather straightforward way,” Mr. Holmdahl said.

There is still a debate among physicists and computer scientists over whether quantum computers that perform useful calculations will ever be created.

Reading carefully, we learn:

1. No one has shown that quantum computers are even possible.
2. No one has even made that first qubit.
3. Big bucks are being spent, with big promises.

If physicists and computer scientists are debating whether quantum computers performing useful calculations will ever be created, then they may be impossible, and talk about them is speculation.

This situation has not changed much for about 20 years, except that much more money is being pumped into R&D, and more ppl are claiming that a breakthru is imminent.

I say it is all a scam. Five years from now, we still will not have a scalable qubit. Quantum supremacy will still be an unproven concept.

I don’t really know more about this new initiative beyond what’s in the articles, but I know many of the people involved, they’re some of the most serious in the business, and Microsoft intensifying its commitment to QC can only be good for the field. I wish the new effort every success, despite being personally agnostic between superconducting qubits, trapped ions, photonics, nonabelian anyons, and other QC hardware proposals — whichever one gets there first is fine with me!

Big money, serious ppl, extravagant hype, and no one understands how they are going to achieve anything.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Math is hard, even for physicists. New research suggests physicists are less likely to lend their focus to theories underpinned by complex mathematical details.

The findings -- detailed in the New Journal of Physics -- are compelling because they suggest a "fear," or at least an avoidance, of math is prevalent even among scientists well-trained in high-level mathematics.

"We have already showed that biologists are put off by equations but we were surprised by these findings, as physicists are generally skilled in mathematics," study co-author Andrew Higginson, a researcher at the University of Exeter, said in a news release.

The new study and resulting hypothesis is based on analysis of 2,000 papers published in a leading physics journal. The researchers tallied citations of previous studies in each paper. They found studies with an abundance of mathematical equations on each page were less likely to be referenced in new papers.

Maybe physicists are intimidated by the math, and do not read and understand the papers with heavy math.

But there are other possibilities. Maybe the math-heavy papers are of poorer quality. Maybe they are more likely to be obscure technical results that are not of use to anyone. Maybe the math is used to disguise the intellectual weakness of the papers.

Maybe a lot of papers get cited just to provide a source for some background material. For example, suppose you are writing a physics paper and you know that black hole entanglement is a hot topic, so you find a contrived way to tie it in. Then you will need a reference on black hole entanglement, even tho you know little about the subject. Are you going to cite a paper that is mostly math or mostly English? You will take the paper in English because you can skim it in about 10 minutes and determine that it is relevant. A paper with technical math results will be less likely to be cited.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Scientific American has a cover story by theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena on an idea known to the experts as ER=EPR.

I thought this was a joke where some physicist tried to show how clever he is by pretending that two unrelated papers are related. SciAm takes this way too seriously.

The idea is that two black holes might be entangled by their interiors being connected by a wormhole. A wormhole is a science-fiction shortcut thru spacetime.

This kooky. It is not science. It is not even science fiction.

What is the appeal of this? Among those who hate quantum mechanics, they have never been happy with the idea that two distant particles could have correlated properties. It seems magical that a measurement of one could predict a measurement on the other. So maybe they would rather believe that the particles are connected by an invisible wormhole!

Meanwhile, Scott Aaronson is still an emotional wreck from the election. I don't want to get too political here, but maybe there is some relation between belief in entangled black holes and belief in various liberal myths. Scott has his second post-election rant:

It’s become depressingly clear the last few days that even most American liberals don’t understand the magnitude of what’s happened. ...

Finally, I wanted to share some Facebook postings about the election by my friend (and recent interviewer) Julia Galef. In these posts, Julia sets out some of the same thoughts that I’ve had, but with an eloquence that I haven’t been able to muster. It’s important to understand that these posts by Julia — whose day job is to run rationality seminars—are far and away the most emotional things I’ve ever seen her write, but they’re also less emotional than anything I could write at this time! ...

I realized it’s not clear to many people exactly why I’m so upset about Trump winning, so let me elaborate.

What upsets me the most about Trump’s victory is not his policies (to the extent that he has coherent policy positions). It’s not even his racism or sexism, though those do upset me. It’s what his victory reveals about the fragility of our democracy.

Trump incites violence at rallies. He spreads lies and conspiracy theories (birtherism, rigged elections) that damage the long-term credibility of the political process, just for his own short-sighted gain. He’s ruined [EDIT: tried to ruin] journalists’ careers for criticizing him, and bragged about it.

Really? Is that the core of her gripes?

99% of the political violence in the last year came from Democrats, not Republicans. Clinton incited violence far more than Trump.

Believing that the President should be a natural born citizen is not a lie or a conspiracy theory. It is reading the Constitution.

Clinton promoted the lies that racist cops are killing innocent blacks for no reason, with Ferguson being the prime example.

About 95% of journalists are opposed to Trump, and they print lies and nasty accusations against him on a daily basis. Their editorials compare him to Hitler.

And somehow Trump is the bad guy for criticizing some of the jounalists who are smearing him?

They mention the well-known gay blogger Andrew Sullivan, and he is infected with the same anti-Trump hysteria. If you ask him about Hillary Clinton, he will launch into a detail monologue about how she is a terrible person in nearly every way. Dishonest, corrupt, incompetent, hateful, warmonger, wrong side of key issues, etc. He gives detail and convincing explanations of why someone like her should never be President. But ask him about Trump, and he degenerates into mindless name-calling and incoherent babble.

It is funny how these folks can act as if they are smarter than everyone else, and especially Trump voters. If they were, then they would be able to give some reasoned arguments to back up their positions. As it is, they appear deranged and delusional.

Update: Scott Adams (aka Dilbert) writes:

Earlier this week CNN.com listed 24 different theories that pundits have provided for why Trump won. And the list isn’t even complete. I’ve heard other explanations as well. What does it tell you when there are 24 different explanations for a thing?

It tells you that someone just dropped a cognitive dissonance cluster bomb on the public. Heads exploded. Cognitive dissonance set in. Weird theories came out. ...

This brings me to the anti-Trump protests. The protesters look as though they are protesting Trump, but they are not. They are locked in an imaginary world and battling their own hallucinations of the future.

Yes. The physicists who talke about entangled black holes and Trump-Hitler comparisons are locked in an imaginary world.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Apparently much of the "Skeptic" community believes that scientists and skeptics should not criticize genetically-modified (GMO) foods for failing to meet their claims, because then leftist crackpots will use that as ammo to ban scientific progress in the field.

In the early part of the 20th century philosophers of science were looking for ways to explain why science is an objective enterprise. Think the logical positivists, or Karl Popper. Then came the so-called “historicist” turn, with Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, and philosophers finally realized that science is not, in fact, intrinsically objective at all. (Many scientists haven’t matured to that point yet.) ...

Of course, all of the above matters much less now that the United States has elected a fascist to the Presidency and given absolute control of power to a bunch of regressive sexists and homophobes.

Once you start going down the path of denying the existence of objective truth, then you usually end up babbling nonsense.

It is very strange to claim that historicism shows that science is not objective. The history of science is primarily a story of man finding objective truths.

Some ppl argue that in physics, relativity and quantum mechanics killed the idea of objective truth. No, they did not. They reinforced the virtues of sticking to objective truths.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I’m ashamed of my country and terrified about the future. When Bush took power in 2000, I was depressed for weeks, but I didn’t feel like I do now, like a fourth-generation refugee in the United States — like someone who happens to have been born here and will presumably continue to live here, unless and until it starts to become unsafe for academics, or Jews, or people who publicly criticize Trump, at which time I guess we’ll pack up and go somewhere else (assuming there still is a somewhere else).

If I ever missed the danger and excitement that so many European scientists and mathematicians felt in the 1930s, that sense of trying to pursue the truth even in the shadow of an aggressive and unironic evil — OK, I can cross that off the list. ...

There is no silver lining. There’s nothing good about this.

My immediate problem is that, this afternoon, I’m supposed to give a major physics colloquium at UT. The title? “Quantum Supremacy.” That term, which had given me so much comedic mileage through the long campaign season (“will I disavow support from quantum supremacists? I’ll keep you in suspense about it…” ), now just seems dark and horrible, a weight around my neck. Yet, distracted and sleep-deprived and humor-deprived though I am, I’ve decided to power through and give the talk. Why? Because Steven Weinberg says he still wants to hear it. ...

And there were Jews who stupidly supported him. I’ve been emphatic, in all my previous posts, that I don’t see Trump as a Hitler figure. ... But what Trump has decisively shown is that the United States is not special in its anti-authoritarian, anti-loon defense mechanisms — i.e., that there’s nothing about its people or its institutions that protects it from the darkest forces that have ever gripped human civilization.

Scott is starting to persuade me of the merits of parallel universes, because he seems to live in one.

The NY Times says that Peter Thiel has become an outcast in Si Valley because he endorsed Donald Trump. Academia is even more saturated with Trump-haters. If anyone is the loony authoritarian seeking to stifle his academic freedoms, it is Hillary Clinton, not Trump.

Trump or the Alt Right would never bother him about giving a talk about "quantum supremacy". Only the Clinton partisans and the Ctrl Left go around trying to pressure ppl to disavow support from various groups. Only the Ctrl Left would try to make him feel bad about a lecture title.

Scott has been a victim of the Ctrl Left persecution, when he said that he only agrees with 98% of their feminist propaganda. They have attempted to shame and humiliate him.

It is funny how he can be a brilliant complexity theorist, and have such political blind spots.

Speaking of Weinberg, see Lubos Motl's rant against him for saying goofy things about quantum mechanics. Weinberg probably voted for Clinton also. He might dare to criticize the most successful scientific theory of the last century, but he would never dare to express public support for Trump.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Dr. Albert Einstein, the famous scientist, made an amazing discovery relative to America on his trip which he recently explained to a sympathetic-looking Hollander as follows:

“The excessive enthusiasm for me in America appears to be typically American. And if I grasp it correctly the reason is that the people in America are as colossally bored, very much more than is the case with us. After all, there is so little for them there!” he exclaimed.

Dr. Einstein said this with vibrant sympathy. He continued:

“New York, Boston, Chicago and other cities have their theatres and concerts, but for the rest? There are cities with 1,000,000 inhabitants. Despite which what poverty, intellectual poverty! The people are, therefore, glad when something is given them with which they can play and over which they can enthuse. And that they do, then, with monstrous intensity.

“Above all things there are the women who, as a literal fact, dominate the entire life in America. The men take an interest in absolutely nothing at all. They work and work, the like of which I have never seen anywhere yet. For the rest they are the toy dogs of the women, who spend the money in a most unmeasurable, illimitable way and wrap themselves in a fog of extravagance.

It followed the next day:

“Chicago Women Resent Einstein’s Opinions”

Men, However, Seem to Agree on “Toy Dogs” and Dominance of Wives

Chicago, July 8. – Professor Einstein’s opinion of America, and of American women in particular, as expressed in an interview cabled from Berlin to THE NEW YORK TIMES yesterday and reprinted in Chicago this morning, brought forth indignant protests from Chicago women today. They took particular exception to Professor Einstein’s characterization of American men as the “toy dogs” of American women.

Chicago men, however, seemed to agree with Professor Einstein on the dominance of women and the “toy dog” charge, while professors at the University of Chicago contented themselves with a few nervous tut-tuts and the comment that the German scientist had obtained a warped view of America because of the short time he spent here. ...

Professor W.P. Evans of the chemistry department at Northwestern University said: “It seems incredible that a man of Dr. Einstein’s attainments should make the statements credited to him. If these statements are correct, they go far to prove the fact that, although he understands thoroughly, we hope (don’t forget to put in the “we hope”), the theory of relativity, he has not the essential qualities for judging the scientific and industrial achievements of a great nation.”